SWITZERLAND

By Joanna Murray-Smith

Directed by Jordan Best – Designed by Michael Spark

Lighting by Cynthia Jolley Rogers – Sound by Mathew Webster

Presented by Pigeonhole Theatre

The Courtyard Studio - Canberra Theatre Centre – July 4^th – 14^th

Performance on 5^th July reviewed by Bill Stephens

Karen Vickery as Patricia Highsmith 

 

Patricia Highsmith was  a successful author who wrote twenty-two novels, including her best-selling “Ripliad”, five books featuring her best known creation, the talented conman and killer, Tom Ripley. Cantankerous, cynical and paranoid, she was not a sweet character; in fact her publisher described her as a mean, cruel, hard, unlovable, unloving human being. She had a talent for burrowing into amoral and macabre corners of the psyche, and spent her final years holed up in Switzerland.

For her play, “Switzerland”, playwright, Joanna Murray-Smith has harvested Highsmith’s eccentricities - her snail-breeding hobby, her collection of antique weapons, her love of show-tunes and her racism, to devise a gripping two-hander that re-imagines the twilight of Highsmith’s life.

The play opens with the ageing Highsmith (Karen Vickery) alone in her study, which is decorated with an arsenal of antique weapons. She’s in the grip of writer’s block, and expecting a visit from Edward Ridgeway (Lachlan Ruffy) the young representative sent by her New York publisher to persuade her to write one more novel before she dies.

Lachlan Ruffy as Edward Ridgeway 

 

Highsmith is determined not to agree to Ridgeway’s overtures and when arrives she is unwelcoming and unco-operative, bating him with hostile, supercharged insults. Ridgeway though is determined to succeed in his mission and not easily dissuaded. He deftly deflecting her barbs, and when he suggests that he can provide her with an ending for her unfinished novel, her interest is finally piqued. However, when Highsmith questions his  sexuality, Ridgeway’s response changes the direction of the play, leading to the final horrific denouement.

Jordan Best’s direction is confident and well- paced and Michael Sparks excellent triangular setting creates exactly the right mood, crammed as it is  with a wealth of detail regarding Highsmith's life and  interests,  and enhanced by the atmospheric lighting design of  Cynthia Jolley Rogers, and Mathew Webster’s well-observed sound design.

Karen Vickery and Lachlan Ruffy in "Switzerland" 

Karen Vickery is fearless in her performance as the unlovely Highsmith, and is well teamed with Lachlan Ruffy, who manages the progression from gee-whiz kid to sinister intruder with considerable aplomb. Both relish the opportunities offered by Murray-Smith’s witty, acerbic, often funny dialogue.

Full houses for the entire season of this play are testimony to the appetite of Canberra audiences for well-produced, sophisticated contemporary plays. Pigeonhole Theatre has again scored a winner with this excellent production of Joanna Murray-Smith’s tantalizing “Switzerland”.

                                              Images by David James McCarthy


This review also appears in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW.  www.artsreview.com.au